YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 7, NOYAN TAPAN. It is expected that Armenia will be granted status of a free market economy by late 2006. The RA Deputy Minister of Trade and Economic Development Tigran Davtian told NT correspondent about it. According to him, the required voluminous package of documents necessary for being granted the indicated status has already been submitted to the appropriate bodies of the European Union, and this package is now under consideration. T. Davtian said that Armenia is "one of the first countries in the queue" to receive status of a free market economy. He noted that the European commission promised to consider the issue of granting status to Armenia until late 2006. "In my opinion, we'll receive a positive answer by the end of this year, otherwise - by early 2007 as the negotiations on the documents submitted are proceeding quite well, and there is mutual confidence between the two sides that the problem of Armenia's status will be solved," he underlined. The deputy minister said that only two CIS countries have the status of a free market economy.

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